Soul Sacrifice: Tough Choices, Colossal Bosses

Soul Sacrifice is, as its name suggests, a game that asks the player to make an ultimate decision. It happens every time you defeat an enemy, actually — a choice to either save the enemy’s soul, or sacrifice it for your own gain. How you customize your character in this regard is crucial, since you’re going to go up against some very large enemies. That scale, and the importance of making the player truly feel it, is at the heart of this piece from composer Wataru Hokoyama:

“An unbelievably gigantic enemy appears before you. For this piece, I focused on bringing out the full potential of a full scale orchestra by using bold orchestration to depict the immeasurable sense of scale of the enemy’s size and power. I hope the score will make the players feel like, “there is no way I can beat an enemy with this kind of scale.”

—Wataru Hokoyama

Because there are gigantic, powerful enemies, it’s important to build your character’s stats and levels. Your decision of saving or sacrificing will affect what type of character you want to build.

Save and Sacrifice

When you defeat an enemy, it will be in critical condition. You can approach it and decide to either Save it or Sacrifice it, each with differing consequences. You can perform both actions by approaching an ally
in critical condition as well.

If you decide to Save, you will share a portion of your health with the enemy or ally in order to help them recover. If you choose to Sacrifice, you will gain access to a powerful spell.

Saving will recover a bit of health and increase your Life LV gauge. Once the gauge is full, your Life LV will increase boosting your defense. Also the health gained from healing magic, and the amount of health
recovered when Saving will increase.

Sacrificing will slightly rejuvenate the number of times you can use an Offering and increase your Magic LV gauge. Once the gauge is full, your Magic LV will increase, boosting your attacks. Also the amount of recovering an Offering when Sacrificing an enemy will increase.

We know fans are eager for in-game footage of the content above, and of the many other exciting features Soul Sacrifice has to offer. Keep checking the blog; there’s plenty more to come! Soul Sacrifice for PlayStation Vita comes to North America on April 30th!

The game is not open world. It is more like a series of instances where you have to overcome certain challenges, enemies and bosses. The demo was great in my opinion (have access through Japanese store). I recommend this game to anyone and everyone.

That is an incredible score! This game has epicness written all over it. That huge Knight Boss in the bottom pick looks amazing! Well done, and I cannot wait to sacrifice some money to buy this day one!!!!

Can we get an answer on just what is happening with the DIGITAL preorder for this game? Will there be one? Will it get the same pre-order bonuses (dual language, added weapon) as the physical copy. We live in a digital age and it would be wise for Sony to keep up. Day and date releases and preorders should be available for all 1st party games, minimum. Not just the occasional 3rd party AAA thing that gets put up on PSN.

@Izo. I hope you realize that everything you said is just an opinion. Its not fact. Millions of people love Monster Hunter styled games. Personally, Ragnarok Odyssey was the first Vita title to hook me right in. As for this, I imagine its a closer “hunting” style game to God Eater. Darker, more adult, better developed, an actual story to it, more plot and character development. And a sweeping musical score from the looks of it too.

Is there any incentive to be a middle-of-the-road character, saving sometimes and sacrificing sometimes? That’s the thing that games like this always screw up. Like inFAMOUS or Mass Effect. It actually hurts you to be a middle-of-the-road character there.

I’ve played a demo during a local game fair and it does play like a cross between Dark Souls and Monster Hunter. Also, this game is the most beautiful Vita game I’ve seen save for Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Shame I could not tinker with powers as this was an untranslated version, and I couldn’t work out what to do with pretty much everything in Japanese.

For those who asked if this is open world, it didn’t seem like it. But who really wants that? It’s about hunting demons and gathering souls and the like. I guess you can say Dark Souls is “open world”, but it’s a very particular take on it that doesn’t dilute the atmosphere and the focus of that game, which is the combat gameplay. I’d hate it if Soul Sacrifice was “open world” like in Skyrim; the game is great but its “openness” dilutes a LOT of story/mission stuff that could benefit from more focus. I want Soul Sacrifice to be Soul Sacrifice, not Skyrim Dragons Sacrifice :P

By any chance is there a way to get a text option to pop up in the lower left and right without the images of the huge hands? I find it to ruin the cinematic experience when two huge hands pop up on the screen when I have to make the choice to sacrifice or save.

I’ve played the demo and it is not open world. The book teleports you to different hubs where you fight monsters.
It is very challenging and lots of fun. However, to really appreciate the music- the sounds- the scale of the battles- you MUST use headphones…and not cheap ones. ;)

I played the japanese demo and I enjoyed it. Keji has made a unique game and I find it as equally enjoyable as I did with Monster Hunter. Both are good games in their own right. However, please do release the demo to NA/US/EU/UK PSNs as soon as possible. Not many consumers have the time and patience to set up a japanese account as it is redundant to reformat the ps vita etc. I want your game to succeed overeseas as well, but in order to do so, you must advertise/market your game globally, and releasing a demo will help with that; i.e. you can’t expect consumers to pre-order your game if the consumer doesn’t know what your game is about. I understand that translating the text and re-dubbing the voice acting in english may take some time, and that is fair, but do release your demo soon so more consumers can try your product. Your product is good, I just think it’s a shame that not many consumers are aware of it.

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading this blog and watching the video. We’ll come back with more info and details about Soul Sacrifice, so please check back again soon. We appreciate your support. Thank you again!!

Thank you Kumi Yuasa it is a great post. But I have a question is there any chance of pre-ordering soul sacrifice on psn and getting the pre-order bonuses on psn? Thank you I look forward to play this game, day one! :)

I just bought the PLAYSTATION ALLSTARS BATTLE ROYAL for my psvita today. I am very happy to play the two new character. I rush to the PSN on my VITA and downloaded the two character. Then the problem happended. I can’t install the DLC character to my vita. Then i update my PLAYSTATION ALLSTARS to version 1.07 and i hoped it will work. Yet again, I can’t install my dlc character again. i give up all hope now. Please sony !! solve my problem.

Will this game be difficult? Because so far everything I’ve heard about this game reminds me of Monster Hunter/Demon’s Souls. I really hope I’m right, but I want to know if I’m getting the wrong impression here.

Really excited about the Japanese audio for preordering it, more games should follow this example for Japanese games. Have mine paid off at Amazon and awaiting an experience like no other! I pray your game is very successful!